


there's a reason we don't love

by WickedHeadache



Category: 24 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cheating, F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:08:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23694400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WickedHeadache/pseuds/WickedHeadache
Summary: Larry has a crush on Renee, they say. They never consider that Renee has feelings for him, too. She's better at hiding it, better at pretending he's just her boss. He's not.
Relationships: Renee Walker (24)/Larry Moss
Kudos: 4





	there's a reason we don't love

**Author's Note:**

> Watching s7, I was constantly thinking these two had had sex before. Because the Subtext™ oh my god. The Subtext™ is strong in this one. 
> 
> So, this is what happened. Hope you like it.

When they first kiss, Renee can't say she's surprised. He presses his lips against hers with the passion only pining for months can accomplish, and with that action alone she can tell how how he cares about her. They break apart. His hands are cupping her cheeks and he looks down to her oh so fondly.

Then she panics. Because this is her boss. She just kissed her boss and loved every single bit of it. There is so many problematic things about it, but it seems like she's the only one of them who cares, if the way he keeps looking at her without any notion of subtlety is anything to go by.

“Larry, we can't-”

He shushes her, and Renee's ready to snap at him, because Larry  _ can't _ do this to her. He can't kiss her and then expect for her to ignore why they are not allowed to do that.

“I know,” he sighs, sounding resigned, and Renee softens her eyes. 

“You're my boss,” she tells him.

“I know.”

Her eyes flicker helplessly across his face, and she represses the urge to lean forward a kiss that desperate look away from his face. 

He's her closest friend, the person she trusts the most — not that there's a lot of people close to her these days. Renee thinks she might lose him because of this. The idea makes her chest hurt. She can't stand imagining a world where he isn't her partner. She can't stand him for daring to change everything.

Or maybe he changed nothing. Maybe this has been long waiting to happen.

“I have work to do,” she clears her throat.

“Right,” he seems to snap out the haze. “You should go home. After a case like this…”

“I just have to finish up the paperwork, then I'll be out.”

“Good, good,” he says, then an awkward silence settles in the air.

As she walks out of the room she hears the hard thump of Larry's fist hitting the wall. She shuts her eyes. They have screwed up.

Renee likes to pretend nothing happened. Larry keeps sneaking glances at her that she pointedly ignores until he takes the hint and regresses back into the role of her boss. It's better that way. He can't treat her like a lover when she no more than the dirty mistress. He can't pine after her in a room full of co-workers.

Janis still looks at them knowingly every time they talk. Every time they stand a little too close to each other, every time they speak to the other with a bit too much familiarity, every time Larry puts a hand in her arm and Renee avoids his gaze. Larry sucks at keeping secrets, she finds out then. He would make a terrible cheater. His wife would probably just know about it with a simple glance at him.

She successfully establishes some boundaries between them. For awhile.

She is on her way home one night, after another day on desk duty — the FBI therapist has yet to clear her to go back into the field — when she feels someone running towards her. She turns around and sees Larry trying to catch up with her to her car. 

Everything has been so dull lately, but she has almost been welcoming that. It's good to have some quiet after so much noise. Larry should be the personification of noise. He's nothing but trouble for her. He's married and he's her boss, and he kisses her even though there's an infinity of reasons why they shouldn't. But he's steady, and trusting, and protective of her, and she probably shouldn't like that as much as she does.

“Hey,” he tells her. He's oozing nervousness. “Do you wanna have a cup of coffee?”

“I don't know…”

He must see her hesitancy, because he holds up his hands, as if it showed his good intentions, and said. “Nothing's going to happen, I swear. I just want us to be friends again. Can we have that?” 

If it weren't for the vulnerability in his eyes as he asked that, she would've rejected him.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” He looks at her in surprise.

“Yes,” she nods. “We can go to my place.”

That was a terrible idea, they both know, but they go to Renee's apartment anyway. Despite promises of friendship, the air is tense with undiscussed mistakes and the stupid ideas of what can happen if they are left alone in a room. 

She lets him in, watches him take off his coat and look around curiously. He has never been here before. She searches for filters, putting her back to him, and she can sense him moving toward her. Thankfully, there's the counter to function as a barrier between. She turns around and finds him observing her.

He  _ really  _ shouldn't look at her like that. 

“What are we doing, Larry?” She sighs.

“We're just having coffee.”

Neither of them is naive enough to believe. “Just coffee? Really?”

“Yes.”

“Is that what you want?” She didn't mean to ask that, not when she's aware of how dangerous the answer can be, but that's what she's currently thinking and she seems to be feeling in a talkative mood.

“I don't think you want to know what I want, Renee.”

“I know I shouldn't want to.”

He walks to her, and she instinctively takes a step back. He stops when he notices. “What do  _ you _ want?”

She gapes at him for a moment. That's another dangerous question. She can't muster the bravery to say the words out loud, so she steps closer to him until she's invading his personal space. Larry doesn't hold back anymore: he leans over and kisses her for the second time.

She immediately melts against him, arms wrapping themselves around his neck. She probably should stop this right now and tell him to leave, or just gently push him away and pretend nothing happened. Anything but what she actually does.

She kisses him deeper, and harder, and lets her fingers dig into his short hair. She takes off his shirt, and she slowly pushes him until he falls on his back to the couch. He yelps, and she can see how shocked he is that she let this go on so far. She doesn't stop there, though. She can't.

She pulls her shirt up and off from her head, unhooks her bra, and leans forward to kiss him again.

When she wakes up the next morning, Larry is still there, holding onto her in his sleep. She feels warm in his embrace, but she knows she has to get out of that bed. There's a feeling settling like a knot in her stomach, that painfully reminds her to shame.

Renee takes a shower, gets dressed and runs away from her own home to go to work.

Janis looks at her knowingly as soon as she spots her. A few hours later, she eavesdrops something about Larry's wife calling to ask if he was working late and him being gone around the same time Renee had left.

She keeps her thoughts to herself, because otherwise she would punch somebody. Most likely herself.

She can't look at Larry in the eyes for the rest of the month. He tries to approach her a few times, to discuss what they did, but at the fourth time Renee sends him a glare filled with warning he gets the message. 

They are a great team, wonderful partners, and she attempts to look the part the best she can. She knows it's not the same. Every time she closes her eyes, there he is, kissing her neck and mumbling sweet nonsenses into her ear. She can be just drinking a cup of coffee or sitting on her couch and she will remember how it felt to have his arms circling her waist. Every now and then, when she's grocery shopping or doing some other mundane activity, her mind goes back to him and, particularly, having him inside of her. But she hopes to get over it, for him to forget whatever feelings he seems to have towards her. 

She doesn't dare to consider the possibility of herself returning said feelings.

Three months later, she almost collides with Larry's wife on the street. She recognizes her instantly, like she has never been able to get Renee's face off her mind. Then, she's staring at her like her gaze may make Renee vanish from existence. Renee wishes that was the case.

“Renee, Larry's partner, right?” She asks. 

She can tell she doesn't really need to answer that. She tries to sound as cheerful as she is able to “Yes. Hi, Grace. It's so nice to see you again.” 

“I wish I could say the same.”

“Excuse me?”

“You are the bitch who stole my husband.”

After these words, Renee doesn't remember how that conversation ends. All she knows is that she goes back home later and throws three glasses of wine to the wall, enjoying how they break into pieces to the floor.

“You left your wife?!” She tells Larry in an angry whisper the next time she sees him. He takes her to away to somewhere private as soon as he notices she has left behind all regards to subtlety. “You told your wife that we slept together and left her?”

“How do you-?”

“I saw her,” she says. “And she hates me. Within reason. How could you leave her?”

“Renee-”

“No, Larry. It was  _ one _ time, but she thinks I stole her husband.”

She has broken a marriage, she sucks in breath. She thinks she might cry, but she won't allow herself to.

“I love-”

“Do not finish that sentence,” she warns him.

“I couldn't lie to her!” He says. “I couldn't stay with her when I no longer love her.”

She sighs. “It didn't mean anything,” she says. He gives a wounded look. She has always been a good liar. It meant everything. She cares deeply for this man. She knows he would put his life on the line for her, just like she would give her life for him. She doesn't allow herself to care about that now, however. Not when she's overwhelmed with such a deep feeling of guilt. 

“You don't mean that,” he replied, unconvincing. 

“I do. You are my boss, Larry. Nothing can happen between us again.”

He takes a step back, physically distancing himself from her. “Right,” he clears his throat.

“I'm sorry,“ she says, and means it with every fiber of her being.


End file.
